1890–1946, American public official, b. Sioux City, Iowa. A social worker, he was appointed (1931) head of New York's Temporary Emergency Relief Administration by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then governor of New York. Two years later, after Roosevelt became President, Hopkins was made chief of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and of the Civil Works Administration, which grew out of the FERA. In 1935 he became head of the Works Progress Administration. Hopkins was made Secretary of Commerce in Dec., 1938, but resigned in Aug., 1940, because of ill health. An intimate friend of President Roosevelt, Hopkins was a special assistant to the President during World War II. He administered the lend-lease program in 1941 and went on several missions to London and Moscow. After Roosevelt's death, he went as President Truman's representative to Moscow to settle problems that had arisen over Poland and the organization of the United Nations. In July, 1945, he retired from public life.

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